Abstract: Most hi-fi audio is stored in digital form. With advancements in lossless compression, bit-perfect ripping/streaming, HD audio formats, multi-terabyte storage, and PC-friendly DACs, has the PC earned a place among high-end audio gear? At what price point?...

Abstract: An example of this is their Xonar Essence series of digital-to-analog converters and sound cards. In November 2008, ASUS announced their Xonar Essence STX sound card, and it is still considered a top of the line product rated among the Creative Labs Sound...

For the serious, or even not so serious, music listener the ASUS Xonar Essence STX is an awe inspiring piece of equipment. Now, let's keep it in perspective, I am not going to tell you to go out and sell your 1968 MacIntosh tube amp and replace it with ...

Crisp audio output, Near flat frequency response, Respectable headphone amp, Very low noise levels on both linein and lineout, Toptier components, such as the capacitors, DAC and opamps, Opamps are user replaceable, Drivers work flawlessly on Vista and 7, Dolby Headphone works well for movies and games,

Need pricey equipment to appreciate the added quality of sound, EAX emulation isn't quite as good as a native hardware solution, No hotkeys to quickly alter settings in Xonar Audio Center

As the performance graphs show, the ASUS Xonar Essence STX is a high achiever. It blitzed all tests, bar one, where the Xonar Xense got a slight upper hand in frequency response. The Essence STX absolutely obliterated the onboard solution in all tests...

Asus' Xonar Essence STX may be pricey, but for audiophiles or those with the money to spend on an excellent sound card, this is the one to get. It looks good and performs even better. It's made with high quality components throughout, right down to t...

When you get down to their core feature sets, the Xonar Essence STX and X-Fi Forte really are quite similar. Both fake EAX effects in Vista, both support 24-bit audio up to 192kHz, both offer a measure of headphone amplification, both sound fantastic, ...